Mathilda and Adelheid were 10th-century Saxon and Burgundian queens, venerated and canonised as `holy queens' for the ways in which they combined their considerable secular power with exemplary and saintly behaviour, including their patronage of the church. This study presents English translations of two anonymous `Older' and `Later' Lives of Mathilda as well as Odilo of Cluny's Epitaph of Adelheid. These sources, which provide invaluable information on politics and religion at the Ottonian court, are preceded by an extensive introductory discussion of the origins and authorship of the texts, the idea of royal saints and the genre of `sacred biography'. Appenidices present further sources.